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founding of Khwārezm-Shāh dynasty

The founder of the dynasty was
Anūştegin Gharachaʾī, a slave who was appointed governor of Khwārezm (
q.v.) about 1077 by the Seljuq ruler Malik-Shāh. Anūştegin’s descendants governed Khwārezm on behalf of the Seljuqs. In 1141, with the defeat of the Seljuq sultan Sanjar by the Karakitai (Qara Khitay) confederation of northern...

role in Seljuq Iran

Atsiz was the military leader who, after Sultan Sanjar’s capture in 1153, succeeded in supplanting Seljuq power in northeastern Iran. His ancestor, Anūṣtegin, had been keeper of Malik-Shah’s kitchen utensils and had been rewarded with the governorship of Khwārezm on the Oxus, where he founded the Khwārezm-Shah dynasty (
c. 1077–1231). Regions elsewhere in...